Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter - a week we won't forget

Last year the week before Easter, Alex came home from church and shared that his teacher had asked him what kind of traditions our family had for Easter. He couldn't really think of any other than our annual family Easter Egg hunt. A little later in the week his teacher (and a good family friend of ours) called and invited us to a traditional passover meal to wrap up the special Easter week their family had been having. We went and all really enjoyed the whole event.

This year I decided that I was going to make a change and start a new tradition...a Christ-Centered Easter Week. Even amongst the crazy busy schedule we live we found time each day to think about the true meaning of Easter.

The Sunday before Easter we celebrated Palm Sunday with a nice meal and palm leaves on the table.Then I presented the L.O.A. (Love One Another) wall -- or at our house three large windows. I got these cool window crayons (that I had to keep hidden until after dinner each night otherwise I know Chloe would have been decorating our house). Each night we each got a turn to write something that we loved about someone in our family on a window.

It really turned out to be a pretty special part of the week.

Sadly I don't have any other pictures to share about the week. Each night we had a special devotional. Monday night was probably the kids' favorite of the whole week -- we talked about Christ serving others and then we filled Easter Eggs with candy and little toys. Then we went and "EGGED" five family's houses with a little sign that said, "You've just been egged!" The kids had so much fun trying to sneak around at each house. Apparently we were not very quiet and were caught at most houses.

The other evenings we shared things about Christ's life and then put a picture up on our wall representing the story in Christ's life that we had discussed. I tried to have some kind of short fun activity each night -- we made edible tombs in two different ways, resurrection cookies, and did a family crossword puzzle another night. Most of the ideas came from HERE and a book called "A Christ Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales.

The end of the week changed a bit with the sudden passing of Birch's aunt and a quick trip that Birch and I made to Oakland for the funeral services. Gratefully my mom and dad we able to rearrange their schedules and come up last minute to stay with the kids and carry on our special Easter week plans.Birch and I were grateful that we were able to spend a day or two with most of his family and many relatives to celebrate the wonderful life of his aunt. She left behind six beautiful daughters and a madly in-love husband. Having her memorial service the day before Easter brought a whole new meaningful feeling to Christ's resurrection and the promise that families can be together forever!

Sunday morning the kids awoke to "Halleluiah" chorus from The Messiah. After church we celebrated with a traditional meal that might have been eaten at Christ's time. Birch and I caught an early flight out of Oakland so we made it home for the last bit of church and the rest of Easter Sunday.

With the help of my sister, Emily and my mom we served up: barley-lamb stew, homemade pita bread, dates, nuts, lentil soup, grilled tilapia, pomegranate juice, flat bread, honey, sliced veggies, yogurt, hummus, olives, and dried fruit. The kids were all pretty daring to try some new foods and I'm happy to report we all found enough stuff that we liked that we didn't go to bed hungry.

We still had our family Easter egg hunt but really the whole week was special and something we plan on keeping as an annual tradition. It was extra special sharing part of the week with my parents and Emi's family.

1 comment:

Sara, I really like what you did for Easter. Our's was all in all a real bummer. I was mostly disappointed though in the lack of focus we had about the purpose of such a special event. Thank you for sharing. I hope to adopt such traditions as well.